I downloaded Warframe a few years ago and then quickly abandoned it. So how has so much changed that I can now happily play it (with friends) for 11 hours straight? Clearly updates over the years and the most recent addition ‘plains of eidolon’ have made it a very enjoyable game. Whilst it’s not the perfect game it will almost definitely be the best free game you’ve ever played. Also I’ve now played it for about 15 hours and haven’t remotely felt the need to spend any real money on it.
If I’m completely honest I don’t remember how the game starts but when I booted it up this time I had chosen the Excalibur warframe, it’s ‘specialty’ being a good balance between gun and blade and being able to channel energy into it’s blade. I had to do a series of missions at the beginning to pursue and defeat Vor who was trying to mess with my head.
The game offers an array of different types of level. There are missions where you have to go to 3 point on the map to extract information, some where you need to rescue a prisoner, others which offer a wave mode and you need to protect a certain object, others where you need to plant and protect drills whilst supplying them with energy (that certain enemies drop) and many more. These are the kind of ‘main’ missions as it were. You can now also visit the plains of Eidolon where you can go on bounty hunts, take on huge enemies and go fishing!
The gameplay is really enjoyable and definitely where the game shines. You can attack enemies with your main weapon, sub weapon or melee (within melee you can also be stealthy). The ranged combat is as good as any other 3rd person action game I’ve played, and there is enough gore to keep blood thirsty hounds happy (albeit simple blood spurts). You also have special moves which offer a huge combat advantage, one of mine for example wipes out pretty much everyone in the immediate vicinity, another turns my sword into an ultimate blade which sends off blasts of energy with every strike. On top of all of this you can also mod your armor with various abilities (adding a fire damage, tracking loot, adding more health etc.) mods are dropped at random and with some tinkering in your ship you can upgrade all of these.
Your ship is your home hub. From here you can choose your missions, visit the market place, choose companions, upgrade/change mods, change what you look like and most importantly craft. Crafting offers a great alternative to having to spend actual money and offers a lot of extra gameplay. You’ll obtain blueprints from certain missions and the market place, you can then craft weapons, armor etc. from the blueprints. The blueprints require various materials to craft them and these need to be collected from various locations (easily narrowed down with google) and none of this feels like grinding, and when you start to fight with a weapon you’ve crafted by god is it rewarding. From your ship you can view a star map of the various planets that you can visit, each planet being locked by a series of ‘missions’ and a final boss, who’s parts are available in parts of the next planet.
The whole aim is really to grind, collect new Warframes and progress through all of the planets. There are also timed events available which drop certain gear and can be really helpful when building a particular frame.
I’ve only been playing this game with friends really (done a couple of hours solo) but it’s an amazingly fun mmorpg, which I didn’t think I was really into. Logging on and taking on wave after wave of enemy is so fun. As is throwing any form of stealth out of the window. It does impress me how good this game looks most of the time and the only sacrifices are really made in enemy animation. There’s also massive variations in the gameplay, in the modes, the weapons and powers incorporated with your Warframe.
I HIGHLY recommend this game. You literally have nothing to lose by downloading this free game (apart from storage space).
There’s a lot of fun to be had especially if you’re one for grinding and collecting gear.
I did find the appeal of playing alone wasn’t huge but it’s a game I can see myself going back to.
If i had to score it i’d give it a 7.5/10
If you want to check out some gameplay have a look at my stream: